Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Remembering the Khoikhoi Victory over Dom Francisco de Almeida at the Cape in 1510: Luís de Camões and Robert Southey
- 2 French Representations of the Cape ‘Hottentots’: Jean Tavernier, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and François Levaillant
- 3 The Scottish Enlightenment and Colonial Governance: Adam Smith, John Bruce and Lady Anne Barnard
- 4 African Land for the American Empire: John Adams, Benjamin Stout and Robert Semple
- 5 Historical and Literary Reiterations of Dutch Settler Republicanism
- 6 Literature and Cape Slavery
- 7 History and the Griqua Nation: Andries Waterboer and Hendrick Hendricks
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
2 - French Representations of the Cape ‘Hottentots’: Jean Tavernier, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and François Levaillant
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Remembering the Khoikhoi Victory over Dom Francisco de Almeida at the Cape in 1510: Luís de Camões and Robert Southey
- 2 French Representations of the Cape ‘Hottentots’: Jean Tavernier, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and François Levaillant
- 3 The Scottish Enlightenment and Colonial Governance: Adam Smith, John Bruce and Lady Anne Barnard
- 4 African Land for the American Empire: John Adams, Benjamin Stout and Robert Semple
- 5 Historical and Literary Reiterations of Dutch Settler Republicanism
- 6 Literature and Cape Slavery
- 7 History and the Griqua Nation: Andries Waterboer and Hendrick Hendricks
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Mbeki's 2003 address to France's National Assembly quoted in the Introduction in fact reveals but one side of his contradictory attitude to France's legacy in Southern Africa. But before examining the second and contrary side, Mbeki's effusive words in Paris warrant more detailed exposition. He opened his address by quoting at length from a speech Maximilien Robespierre made in February 1794. Mbeki repeats Robespierre's bold claims for the new French nation: ‘“[That France may] become a model to nations, a terror to oppressors, a consolation to the oppressed, an ornament of the universe and that, by sealing the work with our blood, we may at least witness the dawn of the bright day of universal happiness”’. For Mbeki, France's revolutionary aspirations speak directly to the new South Africa:
like the people of France in the eighteenth century, we too had to engage in struggle to free ourselves from another tyranny […] We, the victims of a pernicious system of racist white minority rule, which considered and treated us as sub-human, would identify with the French Revolution and draw inspiration from what was done in this country which led to the solemn declaration that ‘Men are born free and remain free and equal in rights’, which proclaimed the vision of Equality, Liberty, Fraternity!
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Imagining the Cape ColonyHistory Literature and the South African Nation, pp. 35 - 63Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2011